AtCES 2025 , I saw some of the most exciting developments in the world of handheld gaming PCs that I ’ve ever seen , but completely absent from the conversation was Nvidia . It ’s a world dominate by AMD with its semi - custom-made designs like thenew Ryzen Z2 image , and one that Intel is tardily working its way into with machine likethe MSI Claw 8 AI+ . Team Green , by comparing , does n’t seem interested .
An Nvidia handheld would n’t inherently be better than the harvest of AMD - power devices we have now , from theSteam Deck OLEDto the newLenovo Legion Go S , but Nvidia already has features and computer hardware that fit the ethos of handhelds dead . But even with so much go for Nvidia in handhelds , it stay on one tough ballock to crack .
It’s all coming together
I postulate to back up first . This year at CES , I get word several raw handhelds . There ’s the aforesaid Lenovo Legion Go S , of course of study , but also devices like the massive11 - inch Acer Nitro Blaze 11 . These devices did n’t steal the show for hand-held enthusiasts , though ; rather it was a seemingly small annunciation made by Valve .
So far , you ’ve had to make some sort of via media with a handheld . You could go with a Steam Deck and get the almost seamless experience of SteamOS , but only with an aged , less - sinewy AMD chip . Or you could up your power with something like theROG Ally X , but you ’d need to settle for the divorce handheld experience that Windows 11 provide . fork ofSteamOS like Bazziteare attempt to fold that gap , but not without a few minor furrow .
SteamOS today is importantly more fledged than it was a couple of years ago . Proton has continued to improveits compatibility , and the vast absolute majority of Windows games represent just finely on the Linux - base SteamOS . One of the biggest hurdles for SteamOS , anti - cheat software , has become less of an issue , too . Although there are still game with anti - cheat that just wo n’t ferment on SteamOS , includingDestiny 2andApex Legends , the position with tools like Easy Anti - Cheat and BattlEye is much better than it was a few years ago . And newer games , likeMarvel Rivals , are looking toward alternate anti - cheat solutions so as to impart the biz to Linux .
The stars are adjust . Proton is well , anti - cheat is n’t as large of a trouble as it once was , there ’s a range of new hardware , and SteamOS will be useable to the plenty in a matter of a few months . But Nvidia is neglect the gravy holder .
Why Nvidia?
AMD has done incredible piece of work with devices like the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally , and Intel has importantly improve from theoriginal MSI Clawto the unexampled Claw 8 AI+ . But Nvidia has a lot to add to handheld gaming PCs with DLSS . It ’s no secret thatDLSS has been a enceinte driving forcebehind the popularity of Nvidia graphics carte over the preceding few contemporaries , and it ’s a feature film that could entirely transform the experience of play on a handheld .
AMD ’s FSR and Intel ’s XeSS are solid option to DLSS , but Nvidia ’s AI - wait on upscaling and frame genesis still take the cake when it comes to overall tone and carrying into action . Upscaling is already a major part of act on a handheld , so much so that the Steam Deck supported organisation - wide FSR upscaling from day one . And systema skeletale generation is becoming even more important , with FSR 3 enable playable execution in game likeGhost of Tsushima , andAMD ’s Fluid Motion Frames 2unlocking playable performance in thousands of game with the ROG Ally X.
I do n’t need to justify the fact that handhelds would benefit from DLSS , especially with the late announcement ofmulti - frame contemporaries in DLSS 4 . It would not only help meliorate performance on handhelds with limited memory access to computing great power , it could also improve shelling life-time . After all , if you do n’t have to manually interpret every pixel and every soma , you could save quite a bit of power .
This is all true of FSR and XeSS , as well . Where DLSS makes the difference is support . XeSS 2 frame generation is only available in a single game at the prison term of penning , and althoughFSR 3 is now available in over 75 titles , DLSS 3 is available in airless to 150 game . And DLSS Super Resolution is useable in over 500 games . As good as the hand-held experience is today between AMD hardware and wide SteamOS support , I shin to believe that the experience with an Nvidia GPU would be worse . There ’s a reason that , despite being the sum of so much criticism , Nvidia continues to maintain a market share above 80 % for desktop graphics cards . It makes a good product , pure and childlike .
It seems like the perfect fourth dimension to unlock that potential difference . SteamOS has matured to the degree that it ’s almost unseamed to use , and DLSS has some very practical software in handheld gaming PCs . But there ’s a reason we have n’t seen an Nvidia handheld pack SteamOS up to this degree , and why we might not see one for quite some fourth dimension .
Nvidia’s blind spot
You ’ve in all likelihood seenthis videoof Linus Torvalds , Godhead and booster cable developer of the Linux kernel , pay Nvidia a very public middle finger for its lack of driver documentation on Linux . There ’s a long history here , but Nvidia has hold a shut - origin driver for Linux for many years , while AMD has stick with open - source , Mesa - base driver . necessitate any Linux actor if Nvidia or AMD is better , and they ’ll tell you AMD every clip . You do n’t have to just take my word for that , either .
I enchant up with Valve ’s Pierre - Loup Griffais at CES , and I need to get it on about how long it would take before I could get SteamOS running on any PC . Before I could even finish the enquiry , he ask me , “ what ironware are you running ? ” He was fishing to see if I was using an Nvidia nontextual matter lineup — I am — and for proficient reason . Although the office with Nvidia hardware on Linux has significantly improved over the past couple of years after the company switched to an open - source computer code base , that displacement has mainly dish out to fix major bug and clash that would show up with Nvidia GPUs on Linux in the yesteryear . Griffais made it clear that the experience today with SteamOS and Nvidia computer hardware would n’t be great .
If you need more validation of that , you’re able to look toward Bazzite , which saysthat “ Nvidia GPUs are presently in beta withmajor caution . ” That bolding is Bazzite , not me . Or you canlisten to NerdNest , who just two weeks ago test to instal Bazzite on an Nvidia laptop only to find that it stopped working after a couple of day . If that is n’t enough , here ’s Linus Tech Tipsshowing how SteamOS would bomb to even boot with an RTX 3060 GPU , and that video was released just a few days ago .
Griffais tell apart me that Valve has a dedicated squad of engineers working with Nvidia to improve machine driver support , and it has for class . In fact , Valve has been working with Nvidia onSteamOS drivers for over a ten , but I suspect the bulk of progress has come in the last couple of years with the success of the Steam Deck and the skyrocketed involvement in SteamOS .
There ’s a classic crybaby and egg problem here . Nvidia ’s Linux support is still not where it should be compared to AMD and Intel , so it has n’t built the ironware for a Linux - free-base play handheld . But because that hardware does n’t exist , and because Linux represents such a small portion of the PC gambling crowd , there ’s not much of a haste to get Nvidia GPUs work utterly with SteamOS , and by annexe , Linux .
There are obvious applications of feature article like DLSS in a handheld , specially now with multi - frame generation in DLSS 4 , but outside of that mold , there are far bigger implication for right Linux backing from Nvidia . As the overwhelmingly dominant provider of desktop graphics cards , there are a fate of opportunity for SteamOS or forks such as Bazzite to ply console - like gambling experiences to any PC . We wo n’t see that future until the position with Nvidia and Linux improves , however .
